Gary Sick on U.S. Mideast Strategy
[Professor Gary Sick is a senior research scholar at Columbia University's
Middle East Institute, and an adjunct professor of international affairs at
Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. He is the author of
All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounter With Iran (Random House 1985) and
October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald
Reagan (Random House 1991).
Professor Sick served on the National Security Council under Presidents
Ford, Carter, and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran
during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis]
>From Gary Sick
It is commonly said that the United States has no Middle East strategy.
That may not be true much longer. The United States has begun to establish
the framework of a new coalition strategy in the Middle East that could
rebuild tattered alliances, shift attention away from the Iraqi catastrophe,
and provide a touchstone for policymaking that could appeal across party
lines.
The organizing principle of the new strategy is confrontation with and
containment of Shia influence - and specifically Iranian influence -
wherever it appears in the region. US allies in this endeavor are Israel
and the traditional (and authoritarian) governments of predominantly Sunni
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. One unique feature of this otherwise
unremarkable set of long-standing friendly governments is the possibility
that the Arab states may subordinate their hostility to Israel at least
temporarily out of their even greater fear of Iranian/Shia dominance of the
region.
One of the products of the U.S. armed intervention in the Middle East since
9/11 has been a shift in the fundamental balance of power. In the name of
fighting terrorism, the United States empowered Iran. By removing the
Taliban, Iran's greatest threat to the east, and then removing the
government of Saddam Hussein, its deadly enemy to the west, and finally
installing an Iran-friendly Shia government in Baghdad for the first time in
history, the U.S. virtually assured that Iran - essentially without raising
a finger -- would emerge as a power center rivaled only by Israel. It is
one of the great ironies that U.S. policy would inadvertently make it
possible for these two non-Arab states on the eastern and western flank of
the Arab Middle East to dominate the traditional Arab heartland. The
process was further accelerated by U.S. democratization policies that put
its traditional Arab allies on the defensive.
Although these were unintended consequences of U.S. policy, the effects
dismayed friends and foes alike. From Iran's perspective, it was a
strategic gift of unparalleled proportions, tarnished only by the fact that
its two major enemies had been replaced by a pugnacious U.S. military giant
looking for new worlds to conquer. That tarnish was gradually removed as
the United States found itself increasingly bogged down in the Iraqi
quagmire, with a public fast growing disillusioned with the ugly realities
of empire building in a hostile and unforgiving environment. Erstwhile U.S.
allies in the Persian Gulf, Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere privately viewed
U.S. actions as a failure at best and a betrayal at worst. They were ripe
for a change.
The origins of the new cooperative undertaking are murky, but they appear to
have been galvanized by the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon the summer of
2006. This event was perceived by Israel, the United States and the Sunni
Arab governments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan as an Iranian attempt to
extend its power into the Levant by challenging both Israel and the Sunni
Arab leadership. Whether Iran in fact had any direct control over the
decision by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, to kidnap Israeli
soldiers is far from clear; however, the perception of growing Iranian
strength and reach - a fundamental shift in the Middle East balance of power
- was unquestioned and hugely menacing to the traditional power brokers of
the region. Initially they had to swallow their words of discontent as
Hezbollah acquitted itself very creditably and entranced the Arab "street."
But once the war was over and Hezbollah began challenging the predominantly
Sunni and Christian Lebanese government of Fouad Siniora, initial misgivings
reemerged.
In the following months we have seen a number of indicators of a new
coordinated policy approach. Senior Saudi officials met privately with
equally senior Israeli officials, which was itself a remarkable new
development. The content of the discussions has not been revealed, but one
of the participants was rumored to be Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former
Saudi Ambassador to Washington and presently Secretary-General of the Saudi
National Security Council, one of the architects of the U.S.-Saudi
collaboration against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and a wheeler-dealer of
legendary reputation. During the same time period, Bandar began a series of
private visits to Washington, meeting with U.S. officials at the highest
level. Apparently these meetings occurred without the knowledge of the
present Saudi ambassador who abruptly resigned after the information became
public.
The United States successfully shepherded a resolution through the United
Nations Security Council denouncing Iran's nuclear program and imposing
limited sanctions. It was adopted unanimously, and it gives Iran 60 days to
change its policies or the issue will be revisited. In the speech by
President Bush announcing a troop increase in Iraq, he focused a surprising
amount of attention on Iran. The announced increase of U.S. naval presence
in the Gulf region together with the supply of Patriot anti-missile
batteries to the Gulf were widely interpreted as warning signals to Iran.
The United States is taking an expansive view of the UNSC sanctions by
prohibiting a major Iranian bank from operating in the U.S. and leading a
campaign to persuade others to do the same. In the meantime, Israel has
maintained a drumfire of criticism of Iran's nuclear program, including
suggestions that if no one else is willing to act, Israel may be called upon
to launch a strike against Iran on is own.
Some of these developments were spelled by Deborah Amos of NPR in a special
report on January 17 ( HYPERLINK
"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6888930)" HYPERLINK
"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6888930)"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6888930)
There have not been (and probably will not be) any formal announcements, but
the accumulating evidence suggests that a major new strategy is being
pursued. What are its moving parts? It is still early days, but here is my
own interpretation of the division of labor that seems to be emerging:
United States:
-- Drop any further talk about democratization in the Middle East;
-- Use its influence in the United Nations Security Council to keep the
pressure on Iran (and to a lesser extent Syria) with sanctions and
coordinated international disapproval;
--Provide military cover for the Arab Gulf states as they take a more
confrontational position vis a vis Iran (Patriot missiles, additional naval
aircraft, etc.);
-- Undertake a more vigorous diplomatic effort to find a settlement of the
Arab-Israeli dispute, recognizing that even limited visible progress will
provide diplomatic cover for the Arab states if they are to cooperate more
closely with Israel;
-- In Lebanon, provide covert support for efforts to support the Siniora
government and to thwart Hezbollah, probably in close cooperation with
Israeli intelligence;
-- Organize dissident movements in Iran, primarily among ethnic groups along
the periphery or other targets of opportunity, to distract and potentially
even destabilize the Tehran government;
-- In Iraq:
(1) keep attention focused on Iran, including raids and general harassment
of its representatives;
(2) keep U.S. forces in country to prevent the situation from descending
into full scale civil war or a breakup of the country(or, as Henry Kissinger
presents it in a recent article, combining both points: "They [U.S. troops]
are there as an expression of the American national interest to prevent the
Iranian combination of imperialism and fundamentalist ideology from
dominating a region on which the energy supplies of the industrial
democracies depend");and
(3) consider engineering a more Sunni-friendly government, especially if
Prime Minister Maliki is unwilling or unable to control the Shia militias;
Arab States (the six Gulf Cooperation Council states plus Jordan and Egypt
- 6+2):
-- Provide major funding and political support to the Siniora government in
Lebanon and work to undercut Hezbollah's influence and image;
-- Attempt to woo (or threaten) Syria away from its alliance with Iran with
promises of money and support of Syrian efforts to regain the Golan Heights;
-- Provide facilities and funding to assist the various U.S. initiatives
above;
-- Attempt to bring down the price of oil, which will remove some political
pressures on Washington and make life more difficult for Iran.
Israel:
-- Provide intelligence support to U.S. (and potentially Arab)
anti-Hezbollah efforts in Lebanon;
-- Keep international attention focused on the Iranian threat as a uniquely
dangerous situation that may even demand Israeli military intervention;
-- Use long-standing Israeli contacts, especially with the Kurds in Iraq and
Iran, to foment opposition to the Tehran government;
-- Be prepared to make sufficient concessions on the Palestinian issue and
the Golan to provide at least the perception of significant forward motion
toward a comprehensive settlement.
A tripartite strategy of this sort has a number of appealing qualities. By
keeping attention focused as fully as possible on Iran as the true threat in
the region, it tends to change the subject and distract public attention
from the Iraqi disaster. It provides something of real value to each of the
participants, but most of the distasteful parts of the plan are plausibly
deniable so they will not have to be explained or justified in great detail
to skeptical observers in any of the countries involved. In the United
States, the antipathy to Iran as a result of the hostage crisis in 1979-81,
inter alia, is so strong that such a strategy is likely to have widespread
appeal to Democrats and Republicans alike, with enthusiastic endorsement
from pro-Israel lobbying groups.
Perhaps most important of all, it provides a single, agreed enemy that can
serve as the organizing point of reference for policies throughout the
region. Like the cold war, this can be used to explain and rationalize a
wide range of policies that otherwise might be quite unpopular. The Holy
Grail of U.S. Middle East policy has always been the hope of persuading both
Arab and Israeli allies to agree on a common enemy and thereby relegate
their mutual hostilities to a subordinate role. Trying to get the Arabs to
conclude that the Soviet Union was a more immediate threat than Israel was
always a losing proposition, though it did not prevent several U.S.
administrations from trying. But Iran, as a large, neighboring, non-Arab,
radical Shia state, may fulfill that role more convincingly.
The advent of Mr Ahmadinejad in Iran, with his extravagant rhetoric and
populist posturing, makes that a much easier sell than it was under
President Khatami. More than anyone else, Ahmadinejad is responsible for
the appeal of this strategy. He has done immense - and perhaps irreparable
- damage to Iran's image in the world and its genuine foreign policy
objectives. The fact that Iranian parliamentarians are banding together in
opposition to him and his policies is evidence that this has not gone
unobserved in Tehran, but it may be too late.
Will the strategy work? Well, it does NOT necessarily mean an immediate
recourse to military conflict, as some are predicting. The underlying
fundamentals have not changed: none of the tripartite protagonists stand to
gain by an actual war. Especially after the Iraqi experience, it is widely
understood in Washington that a war with a country as large and as
nationalistic as Iran would be immensely costly and almost certainly futile.
Moreover, there is no halfway house. You can't do a quick air strike and
realistically expect it to end there. The situation would inevitably
escalate and ultimately require boots on the ground. That is a bridge too
far for the United States at this juncture. However, the strategy is
deliberately provocative and risks prompting a belligerent Iranian response
(or perhaps it is deliberately looking for a belligerent response} that
could quickly escalate into an armed exchange. So the threat of military
action is not insignificant.
Will the new policy persuade Iran to change its policies? Probably not,
although knowledgeable Iranian political observers say Iran is actually ripe
for a deal that would deal with both the nuclear and the Iraqi issues. Iran
will have a celebration in a few weeks about its initial success in running
a linked series of centrifuge cascades. That would be the moment when they
could accept at least a temporary suspension of enrichment activities
without renouncing their national "right to enrich." If the Europeans (and
Americans) are interested in moving to a settlement of the nuclear issue,
that would be the moment to revisit and/or creatively reformulate the array
of proposals - Iranian and European - that are already on the table.
The new tripartite strategy, however, is not really about Iran but about the
three protagonists. It brings them together, gives them a common purpose,
offers an alternative to the current misery of reporting about Iraq, and
provides a focus for future planning that might gain a wide measure of
support. Unfortunately, that suggests that actually finding a negotiated
solution with Iran is very much a secondary priority.
